Sunday, 16 December 2012

What sort of waste plan would you want if Lynas LAMP was coming to your community?

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Australian-owned company Lynas is quietly shipping rare earth to a processing plant in Malaysia - without a firm plan in place to dispose of dangerous radioactive waste. Wendy Bacon reports

If a manufacturing plant involving radioactive materials moved into your community, one of the first things you would ask is, "what’s going to happen to the waste?"

This is exactly how residents of Kuantan on Malaysia’s east coast reacted when the Australian company Lynas announced plans to buildLAMP, the world’s biggest rare earth processing plant in their area.

Several years later, they have no clear answer. Indeed last week, while the plant that will use concentrate imported from Lynas’s rare earth mine at Mount Weld in Western Australia was finally ramping up for production, the Malaysian Government and the company were in direct conflict about what would happen to the waste.

On 8 November, after two years of delays caused by court challenges and inquiries, a halt on a temporary licence granted to protesting citizens in September was lifted. Five days later, Lynas secretly moved 100 containers of rare earth concentrate from a depot at Bilbra Lake and quietly shipped them through Fremantle Port. The containers were unloaded and delivered under police escort to the $800 million plant on 22 November.

But last week, four Malaysiangovernment ministersbacked by the entire cabinet declared that Lynas’s temporary licence will be cancelled if it does not fulfill a condition to export all radioactive waste from Malaysia. Lynas was forced to call a share trading halt claiming that there is no such condition in its licence, which at this stage is not public. By the end of last week, Lynas’s share price fell further to 55 cents, down from $1.21 this time last year.

The 17 rare earth elements are used in many products including mobile phones, flatscreens, missiles and wind turbines. All environmental experts agree that mining, refining and recycling rare earths can have serious, long term consequences if not carefully managed, specifically because the elements are found with thorium, which is mildly radioactive. Ninety-six per cent of global production currently occurs in China, where mines and plants have caused serious environmental degradation.

Lynas continually asserts that their plant is "absolutely safe," but confusion and insufficient planning for waste disposal has sparked local opposition. The campaign includes grassroots campaigning group Save Malaysia Stop Lynas (SMSL), local members of parliament, the Malaysian Green party, Australian Greens MPs and members and Friends of the Earth Australia. Even the Malaysian bar council hosted an event at which an engineering professor and lawyers opposing to the plant spoke. Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has pledged the opposition would scrap the plant if it wins national polls next year.

For two years in a row,SMSLdelegations from Kuantan have protested outside Lynas’s annual general meeting, spoiling executive chairman Nick Curtis’s attempts to soothe his anxious shareholders. The delegation’s leader, Tan Bun Teet, recently spoke at aNSWparliamentary reception hosted by GreensMPJamie Parker held after the 20 November meeting. He lives near the plant and told attendees he was angry Curtis had led shareholders to believe the campaign against the plant was small.

Any misunderstandings about the strength of opposition to the plant were resolved when the delegation arrived home to join the last day of a 300 kilometre protest walk from Kuantan to Kuala Lumpar, which by the time it reached the capital had swelled to 20,000 people. WhenSMSLdiscovered Lynas had successfully smuggled the concentrate into the plant while they were gone, they issued an angry press statement, saying:

"Lynas must be desperately worried to be doing this secretly. At itsAGMon Tuesday in Sydney I was there just to hear its executive chairman Nick Curtis [tell] its shareholders that the Stop Lynas campaign in Malaysia consist of just 10 people! If we are so weak and ineffective, why try to gag us through a defamation action, why ship its ore concentrate in such secrecy and at night using police escort?" (The company, which has already settled two defamation writs with Malaysian media outlets, is suing members of theSMSL campaing.)

Lynas managing director Nick Curtis was not available for interview, but a company spokesperson told New Matilda that the arrival of the containers was kept secret because of threats by green groups to blockade the shipment. Local authorities organised the police escort without a request from Lynas, the spokesperson said.

In asserting the safety of its operations, Lynas continually relies on a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, commissioned by the Malaysian Government in 2011. The report confirmed that the plant had complied with Malaysian regulations, which meet international standards. But a closer examination of the report’s findings is not reassuring. The agency found that the Malaysian Government — which had allowed the company to begin construction without long term, permanent plans for its waste — needed to be strengthened so that it could effectively regulate the industry.

It recommended that the company lodge its intended plans for long term storage of waste, waste disposal and for decommissioning the plant at end of its life. This crucial information had been omitted from previous company Radiation Impact Assessments compiled in 2008 and 2010. As the plant’s opponents were quick to point out, no company would have been allowed to begin construction before this information was lodged and independently assessed in Australia.

Shortly after the agency’s report came out, the New York Times reported that documents supplied to them by Lynas engineers showed structural cracks, air pockets and leaks in concrete shells for 70 containment tanks that would hold toxic plant materials. They were alsocriticalof the materials used to construct the tanks.

The Lynas spokesman dismissed the engineers’ complaints in the New York Times article, saying: "The reality is that any concrete construction will quite often have cracks when concrete dries, it’s normal and those cracks will subsequently get filled in when concrete dried. Any pockets would have been filled in before the leak proof lining that is put into the concrete … These are guaranteed by an independent contractor."

Lynas company documents show that three weeks after the agency’s report came out it had filed the recommended plans with Malaysian authorities. But it is unclear how detailed these plans were and what exactly the company promised to do. Lynas told New Matilda that it has filed a Permanent Disposal Facility plan but that it is "commercially in confidence". New Matilda asked for a copy but did not receive one. Patersons Securities analyst Andrew Harrington was reported in The Australian last week to have told his investor clients that the licence did require a permanent disposal facility to be agreed between Lynas and the government but that this was still being discussed.

Lynas’s spokesperson says the residue contains naturally occurring radiation but this is much lower than minimum level occurring naturally in environment, and should not be described as hazardous

The company says it plans to transform the residue into synthetic gypsum for road building and other projects, a process being used successfully in the oil and gas industries, but yet to be done in the rare earth industry. "Lots of work has been done by a whole bunch of academic and commercial organisations as to whether this residual material is capable of being used in this work," the spokesperson said. "They are all very confident it will work." He said they have already had expressions of interest but he could not "say one way or the other … everything these guys say or do is blown up and is capable of being taken out of context".

The company had planned to sell at least some of the gypsum in Malaysia, if the government gives permission. Failing this, Lynas will pursue customers in Indonesia, the United States and Australia, but the company’s spokesperson declined to give further details on this matter. In any case, nothing more can be done until there is enough residue for pilot production.

Asked whether there are plans for safely decommissioning the plant, the spokesperson said this was really "academic" because there is enough raw material to keep the plant operating for 50 years. But the company has previously talked about a life of 20 years; if the plant operates for longer than that, the amount of radioactive waste, which can last for hundreds of years, will be much greater. Even if the plan to process the waste into secondary products is successful, there is no guarantee an export market for synthetic gypsum will be stable.

Given the company’s optimistic plans to produce gypsum, it is hard to understand why in March this year it applied to the South Australian government to import waste from the plant back into Australia. In answer to a question by Greens Senator Scott Ludlum on 30 October this year, senator Joe Ludwig, speaking on behalf of the Minister for Health, said that an application from Lynas was currently under consideration by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA). "ARPANSArequested more information from Lynas Corporation on 2 April 2012," Ludwig said. "Lynas Corporation has yet to respond and the application cannot progress until the requested information is received."

The South Australian government would also have to approve the import of the waste. New Matilda has asked the company about this application and will report its answer tomorrow.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report also found that the Malaysian Atomic Energy Licensing Board should improve the transparency, visibility and public understanding of its approach to regulation and that Lynas should improve communication with residents and stakeholders. The company admitted that it had fallen down in that area and since the report was published, has done 15,000 community consultations and improved its information and monitoring plans.

Eighteen months later, as Malaysia’s burgeoning environmental movement gains confidence and the country heads towards its national elections in 2013, it is unlikely to win over its angry opponents. They remain unsatisfied that an untested recycling process should replace firm plans for safe permanent storage of waste for the life of the plant and afterwards. Even if Lynas makes all its plans and contingencies public it may be too late.

Lynas will be in court in Malaysia on 19 December. TheSMSLcampaigners will be appealing against the Kuantan High Court decision to lift its stay on the company being able to exercise its rights to proceed under the temporary licence.

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endy, I cant believe you would put a photograph of yourself as the author of such a distorted and biased article.

Do you subscribe to the AJA Code of Ethics ???or even the Media Alliance Code of Ethics ???

From your article all indications point to a big fat NO.

Now, I may not be the most eloquent or grammatically correct writer, however I do understand how to read between the lines and pick your article to pieces based on ethics and environmental knowledge and a little bit of basic fact checking.

So, here are my points.

1. The residual wastes are not "radioactive wastes" according to AELB FAQ, they are classed as NORM, naturally Occurring Radioactive Material. You can confirm this by clicking on this link: http://www.aelb.gov.my/aelb/malay/dokumen/lynas/faq/Compilation_of_FAQs_03022012-15042012.pdf

Compilation of FAQs Lynas Media Clarification (Feb 3rd – Apr 15th)

Please read the information from a credible source. Note activists are not peak bodies or authorities.

2. Lynas has submitted a waste management plan. You indicate they have not. This is incorrect. What you may be referring to is a long-term management waste plan which may or may not include a PDF (Permanent Disposal Facility). Lynas has submitted plans (which was on public display) and also indicated that with proven commercial examples that the residue can be sold as commercial products.

You can confirm the existence of a waste management plan by checking with the AELB and the IAEA.

http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/pdf/lynas-report2011.pdf

You can also check the AELB website FAQ which states, referring to the waste management..."In the public display, they had already made it clear on how they will manage the residue. We and the experts had reviewed the documents and satisfied with it."

Lynas has ten months from the issuance of the TOL to submit plans for a long term disposal site, if required (Lynas indicates a PDF is not required based on existing commercial uses for by-products).

So if in July or August 2013, Lynas hasn't submitted a long term plan, then please write about truthfully.

3. "quietly shipped them through Fremantle Port" Its good to hear Lynas is adhering to Western Australian Law for noise limits by being quiet with their shipping. Well done Lynas, we would hate for you to be noisy.

4. This is the most ridiculous statement (and offensive) I have read from a Professor..

"All environmental experts agree that mining, refining and recycling rare earths can have serious, long term consequences if not carefully managed"

5. "Lynas continually relies on a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency"

The IAEA is the peak body of experts on radiation issues. Do you have the expertise to debate the IAEA on matters of radiation safety? Clearly you do not. The IAEA are best placed to assess and review the Lynas facility and the AELB.

You might also like to know if you bothered to do any reading that only 1 recommendation from the IAEA is directed to Lynas, the rest are for AELB. The Atomic Energy Licensing Act 1984 and the Board were non-existent during ARE (Bukit Merah)

"But a closer examination of the report’s findings is not reassuring"

- For someone who doesn't understand , it may not be reassuring. This is your opinion, not a fact. I personally find it reassuring that the IAEA has identified gaps in the AELB regulations for which improvements have been recommended. I would not find it reassuring if the IAEA found nothing to improve on.

6. "there is no guarantee an export market for synthetic gypsum will be stable"

There is no indication money markets or other commodities will remain stable. Your comment again is ridiculous.

Akin to saying.

"there is no guarantee financial markets will be bearish next year" or "there is no guarantee there will not be a world war next year."

Unless you can predict the future, then nothing is certain.

7. "Even the Malaysian bar council hosted an event at which an engineering professor and lawyers opposing to the plant spoke."

Please provide names, or their attendance is irrelevant. Do they go on record with their professional opinions on the Lynas plant, IAEA review or AELB licensing procedures?

Lawyers are not health experts or environmental experts.

8. Another incorrect fact. ..."it is hard to understand why in March this year it applied to the South Australian government to import waste from the plant back into Australia"

It is Western Australia and they applied through ARPANSA. The application has since been retracted.

I would expect a Professor such as yourself to at least get the facts correct. This is BASIC stuff. What do you teach at UTS? How not to be a good journalistic writer?

Do you teach your students about the concept and benefits of fact checking?

The recycling of NORM wastes is a tried and tested. The AELB, although not 100% confident states that "This theory have already been tested in UK, it is not something new."

So Wendy, it has been tested, and IS NOT SOMETHING NEW!

10. "the New York Times reported that documents supplied to them by Lynas engineers showed structural cracks, air pockets and leaks in concrete shells"

from the AELB FAQ..."The AELB has had an explanation from Lynas and their explanation has already been made public. AELB has verified that the construction has been approved by a certified engineer."

11. "When SMSL discovered Lynas had successfully smuggled the concentrate into the plant"

Lets have a look at the definition of smuggled...."Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations."

Lynas had ALL PERMITS AND LICENCES and was shipping goods from Australia to Malaysia in accordance with all Malaysian, Australian and International laws and regulations.

Smuggled, what a load of rubbish. To insinuate Lynas "SMUGGLED" its product into Malaysia s ethically indefensible. Your accusing someone of breaking the law when they have not.

12. "why try to gag us through a defamation action" - Lynas is suing for defamation. I would also sue for defamation if a person(s) was spreading lies. You would also Wendy.

13. "why ship its ore concentrate in such secrecy " ... The reason is that the leaders of SMSL have publicly stated that they will even break the law to stop the material being delivered. Industrial sabotage actions by this group are planned and demonstrates the types of people Lynas has to deal with.. People who admit they will break the law.

So Wendy Bacon..recently retired Professor from UTS.... For you recent article, I assess your journalistic skills as a D+

D = Disgraceful.... and yes...its a Fail

The + is for encouragement. Lift your game and stop posting leftist biased hypocritical nonsense.

Well said unknown.If an intelligent person read wendys article and the above comments, I believe the conclusion would be the person posting the comments stuck to the facts and knew what he/she was talking about whereas wendy,like most on this site prefer to let adjectives and accusations based on opinion misleadf and scare the vunerable.Time will tell. Its in the company and the countries interest to get this right and if they don't then they will get what they deserve. It is safe to say they are being monitored closely.

Bacon enrolled in graduate law school in 1977.[4] Upon graduation in 1979 she applied to join the NSW Bar,[4] but was rejected on character grounds as an unsuitable person. In his judgment Justice Reynolds stated that the decision was "a question of whether a person who aspires to serve the law can be said to be fit to do so when it is demonstrated that in the zealous pursuit of political goals she will break the law if she regards it as impeding the success of her cause".

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